After resting for a few hours we woke up, still numb because of the previous
journey and now we could finally see where we were. The rocky landscape
surrounded us with its high mountain lakes. We move slowly because the
headache has not disappeared, and with every movement our hearts start to run.

We
check the area of the base camp to see the different perspectives and we climb
a close by mountain from where the immensity of the wall we have to climb can
be appreciated, the Cartensz Pyramid. It is a limestone wall with something
more than 600 m to climb.

We
go back to the tent to eat, although we can’t do it, the exhaustion and the
lack of appetite keeps us from doing it. We’ve been here at Base Camp for a
while and we leave tonight at 3:00 towards the summit, it is almost funny the
swift way that everything has been done, but Pedro and I know each other: a
big worry invades us on the inside, we know how complicated it will be, and we
still have Everest very recent.

Our French teammate Jacques Marmet has a great mountain résumé, he just has
the summits of the Cartensz Pyramid and the Vinson ( Antarctica ) to finish
his Seven Summits project, he has climbed Everest by the North Face, and has
been to a great number of mountains.

It
is the second time we are here and leaving without the summit would be a great
pain, although the first time almost doesn’t count, because we didn’t want to
get close to the mountain because of the guerrilla problems”.

Juan Antonio
Huisa

Translated from
Spanish by Jorge Rivera

Earlier:
CARSTENZ PYRAMID EXPEDITION, NOTE No. 2

“After arriving to Jakarta and preparing the luggage we had just 2 hours of
sleep, because we should leave at 2:30 to the airport for our trip to our
destination Timika (Irian Jaya), we had made a connection in Makassar , so
after a flight of 6 hours we arrived to our destination.

We
were picked up in Timika and we were told that we should leave to Base Camp
after our meal, a real madness because we had to move to Zebra Wall (the start
for the trekking), for almost 5 hours in a 4x4 and we would start a march of 5
hours to Base Camp, which is located at 4,030m. That means that, after 3 days
without sleeping we would make a night trekking of more than 5 hours, heavily
loaded, because we had no porters to get to 4,000m with no acclimatization.

We
had a tight program but it was going to be compressed even more, we asked for
explanations and they told us that was the way it should be. We were picked up
by a police 4x4 with dark windows and with a lot of mystery and hush we were
told to put on long sleeved jerseys and a hat and that it was absolutely
prohibited to shoot pictures and video, because we were going to cross a
restricted area (the famous Freeport mine, the most important mine of cupper,
gold and silver in the world). We already knew about the existence of the
mine and that the government hides it as a state secret, but we would not
imagine that we were going to see it.

We
got on our way and we went through a series of checkpoints with no problems,
because a sergeant is driving and a commandant is on his side, it is by night
and the fog covers everything. The slope is steep, the track is used by a lot
of 4x4, huge trucks, machines, etc…, and while we were climbing we started
seen the incredible installations they have there, the area of the mine can be
even larger than the province of Sevilla, it looks like we are in another
planet, Mars. It is at night and the landscape can not be clearly seen, the
place is in the jungle, large ferns, cascades, precipices, and we continued
climbing and climbing. Suddenly we stopped, we go out of the car and we
quickly get into another official car from the mine, where an operator takes
us again, we don’t know where.

The night is very dark, we continue climbing, going by enormous installations
and suddenly we are into a maze of ascending tunnels. We travel more than 50
km of tunnels without going out, hundreds of km crisscross, with a lot of
bullet proof gates, checkpoints, etc., this is like a space station. We can’t
believe what we see and at last we go out where we face gigantic machinery,
trucks that are 5 meters high and excavators that don’t stop working for 24
hours. We get to the highest point and we quickly leave the vehicle, we take
our backpacks and we get into the mountain.

The night is very dark, it is raining, and we start the trekking that will
last until we get to base camp. This is a total
adventure, but our worries increase. We
are very tired, we have 22 kilos on our back and we don’t clearly know what we
are going to find. Time goes by and the tiredness and altitude hit on us. We
are five (cook, guide, a French climber, Pedro and I). We climb little by
little, the guide is exhausted because of the weight, the cook stops to throw
up. Pedro has mountain sickness and throws up, my head aches and the French
guy is also tired. It is normal, we have gone from 0 to 4030m in less than 10
hours.

Finally we get to base camp, a very long journey but loaded with emotions, and
everybody goes to sleep…” Juan Antonio Huisa

Translated from Spanish by Jorge Rivera

“After a very long
and tiresome trip that took us from Sevilla to Madrid – it is overwhelming
to see how the T4 was left –, and from there to Doha , Qatar , where we
boarded again to Singapore and lastly to Jakarta , Indonesia .

It took us almost
16 hours on the air and the trip lasted one day and a half. We were picked
up at the airport and they took us to the hotel, to start preparing the
luggage for the mountain quickly and they informed us that we were
supposed to leave in 4 hours to Papua.

We will arrive
there at Timika and we will be transported by 4x4 to Cebra Wall (3 hours)
and from that point we will start the march to Base Camp (5 h.). That
means we will climb to almost 4,000m in one try, so we will climb with no
time to acclimatize. And also when we get to Base Camp we will have 3
days without sleeping.

The program is very
tight, because of the multiple bureaucratic complications that this
country has, so we have 8 days to get there, attempt the summit and go
back to Spain , a record.

We thought that the
group of the expedition would have 5 members, as they told us, but the
guide told us some of them didn’t show up, so it is just Pedro, me and an
Frenchman. We have a lot of doubts, but we are very clear that we have to
go get the summit”.

Juan A. Huisa
García

Translated from
Spanish by Jorge Rivera

Earlier: The climbers
from Sevilla will leave on the early morning of Thursday toward Indonesia

January 23,
2007

The
climbers from Sevilla (Spain), Juan Antonio Huisa and Pedro López, will leave
on the early morning of next Thursday 25 to Indonesia to face the challenge of
the Cartensz Pyramid. They were there on 2003 trying to climb the highest
peak of Indonesia and Oceania but the unstable situation of the country and
problems with the guerrillas kept Huisa and Lopez even from seeing the
mountain. This 5,030m mountain has been closed for several years and it looks
like it was recently open, but under very exhaustive controls and the permits
require a great amount of money, and they don’t guarantee the possibility of
climbing.

The
highest peak of Oceania is not really defined, that means there are two
opinions on which is the continental roof. For political reasons some say the
highest peak of Oceania should be in Australia , which occupies the largest
part of the oceanic continent, so if it was so, the highest peak should be
Kosciusko, 2,228m, and also Indonesia belongs to Asia and not to Oceania .
The second opinion, because of geographical and geological reasons, assures
that the Carstenz Pyramid is on the island of New Guinea ( Indonesia ) and
that it belongs to the same tectonic layer as Australia , so it is part of the
oceanic continent, although politically it belongs to Asia . So the climbers
who make this ‘seven summits’ project avoid controversy by climbing both.

Huisa and
López crowned Mount Kosciusko in Australia in 2003, and from there they left
to Jakarta (the capital of Indonesia ) with the intention of climbing the
inaccessible pyramid. After being greeted by the Spanish ambassador himself,
he begged them not to fly to New Guinea, because the situation was very
hostile, but being already on the other end of the world they could not turn
around without even trying; so they flew to New Guinea and after landing on
Jajapura, they rented a private plane where the climbers barely fit inside
with the pilot and the material, and they arrived to Ilaga, in the heart of
the jungle. When they got off the plane they found another civilization,
another age, the clothes of the people were just feathers on their heads and a
cane that hid their penis, called “Koteka”. The inhabitants of the primitive
tribes of the zone lived in the Neolithic era, in the jungle, with guerrilla
problems that want the independence from the government of Jakarta . The army
cut their way and mentioning security reasons they didn’t let them pass and
they were there for four days without being able to move away from the zone.

Some days
ago the climbers of CD Siete Cumbres got a call telling them the possibility
of starting the expedition, which begins day after tomorrow after making
preparations in record time. The group is made by a guide, a cook, the two
climbers from Sevilla, two Americans, two Frenchmen and one more climber.
Uneasy because of the situation they lived on 2003, and knowing that
Indonesia is a chaotic country, Huisa and López will leave at 6:30 on Thursday
25 to Madrid, where they will catch a flight to Doha (the capital of Qatar),
they will continue to Singapore (the capital of Malaysia) and from there to
Jakarta (the capital of Indonesia). A very long trip to the other end of the
world. Once on the capital of Indonesia they will take domestic flights to
get to Timika, on the island of New Guinea, from where the expedition will
leave to the mountain.

Translated
from Spanish by Jorge Rivera

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